With recent technological advancements in computer and wireless communications, mobile wireless computing has seen increasingly widespread use and application. Not constrained by wires, users with mobile computing devices can move around freely and can communicate with one another in circumstances where there is no fixed infrastructure. In such cases, they can form a mobile ad-hoc network (MANet) or mobile wireless mesh network. A mobile wireless mesh network is an autonomous system of wireless mobile routers (and associated hosts) that can move randomly and reorganize themselves into an arbitrary network without any underlying backbone and infrastructure.
Mirroring the structure of the wired Internet, a routed wireless mesh network is highly flexible and inherently fault-tolerant. The wireless routers in the mesh network not only provide Internet access for the users but also form a network infrastructure that allow routing data to a destination within the wireless mesh network. This greatly simplifies line-of-sight problems and extends the reach and coverage of the network with a minimal amount of network infrastructure and interconnection costs.
As the Internet continues to gain in popularity, demand for broadband access has outpaced the wired infrastructure in many areas. Wireless broadband networks make high-performance access possible where the wired infrastructure is nonexistent, outdated or impractical. However, the previous wireless broadband technologies have not been practical for price-sensitive mass market deployment due to a combination of technological constraints and high-deployment costs.
Although originally developed for military use, wireless mesh technologies have also shown great value in commercial sectors such as metro, enterprise, campus and public safety applications. Hundreds of cities around the globe have deployed or are planning to deploy wireless mesh networks to unwire their cities and provide wireless broadband services to their citizens, enterprises and governments. Wireless mesh technology is gaining momentum.